“Fear of Fear” (1975) : Insanity of Encountering Nothing. Film Review.
So, shall we continue? After a long lull of almost a year, I’m officially reanimating this magazine.
Let’s start right away with the heavy artillery. Today we’re going to talk about Rainer Fassbinder’s movie Fear of Fear. I don’t remember where it came from on my watch list, but it was next to Polanski’s Knife in the Water, and apparently it was about his apartment trilogy, and in its influence on other directors. And indeed, in Fear everything unfolds in a very similar spiral: a woman who, from all introductions, should be living the life of a happy wife and mother, suddenly goes insane for some reason.
So why does this happen? If we ignore the obvious reasons — loneliness, unsettled life, too high demands from society — growing out of an imperfect system of social structure, we can reflect on my favorite, not so obvious ones.
Namely about the very term of fear, which in German is Angst (there are probably other synonyms in German, but I don’t know them, and this one was chosen for the title of the movie for a reason), i.e. about metaphysical fear originating from German philosophy, or about a certain comprehension through the encounter with Nothing. In general, Angst is, quote, “a central concept of German linguoculture,” and this terror of the Nothing in the context of the movie can be transferred both to the heroine’s individual story and to the whole German culture.
So, Margot goes mad because she is closer to the abyss of nothingness than anyone else in her environment, and at the same time full of an irresistible urge to live her life. How to understand this? Her hubby and his whole disgusting family don’t. But the lunatic across the street got it in one look. I mean, you don’t choose these things. It’s just that some people feel more and some people feel less. And someone third, who didn’t even know he was experiencing something similar, watches the movie and suddenly recognizes himself.
